Despair's War
by SakuraKiss444
Summary: "The body wasn't Mukuro's. It WAS Junko Enoshima's, and Mukuro Ikusaba IS the mastermind."


"The body wasn't Mukuro Ikusaba's. I can't possibly understand how I missed it," Kyouko Kirigiri said as she climbed up the ladder of the trash shoot behind Makoto Naegi. "We were completely off. Junko Enoshima _did_ die that day, and Mukuro Ikusaba _is_ the mastermind. We need another trial immediately. I feel so stupid for missing this. I'm sorry that this had to happen to you before I could realize what happened."

—

Another trial was put into place almost immediately afterwards.

"How are we going to convince the others that Ikusaba-san is the mastermind?" Naegi asked Kirigiri.

"They'll have to believe me. I don't know how they wouldn't. I'm not a killer, and neither are you." Naegi sighed as they boarded the elevator.

"What are you two babbling on about?" Togami asked the pair.

"The mastermind." Kirigiri said bluntly.

"Enoshima Junko, I imagine."

"Mukuro Ikusaba."

"Ikusaba?" Togami replied, startled that he was not correct.

"Yes. Mukuro Ikusaba is the mastermind, and it would do all of you good to remember that. She is the only one who was capable of pulling off such a feat. Her whole life she'd been trained to kill, she could murder without hesitation or remorse."

"Ah." Togami replied, setting his mind to think of Mukuro Ikusaba standing where he imagined at first Junko Enoshima to be.

—

"Now~!" Monobear said happily, standing up and spinning in his chair. "Who's the mastermind? Who's controlling your fuzzy little headmaster? Take your vote!" A small box appeared before each student, along with a pen for scrolling through their options. Kirigiri picked through until she found an option of a girl with short hair and piercing eyes, colors obscured by the disgustingly happy pastel colors shading each characters face. She wavered for a single second, and pushed down the button displaying the girl with the short hair. She made eye contact with Naegi and Togami. They appeared to have made the same decision.

"Waa-hooooo! You are correct! I, Mukuro Ikusaba, am indeed the mastermind!" A large puff of smoke appeared before the group, and suddenly a girl stood in the empty sixteenth desk; Monobear had disappeared.

"Hello everyone." She said. The plain, white button-up t-shirt she was wearing had been replaced with something that looked very much like the dead Chihiro Fujisaki's coat. "I guess it has finally come to this point.

"Which is totally bullshit, by the way." She continued, now sporting the dead Leon Kuwata's jacket.

"I don't deserve to fuckin' die." She was now wearing Mondo Oowada's biker jacket, which was seven or eight sizes too big for her small figure. "YOU ALL DO!

"But I'm not one to say I haven't lost fair and square. After all, you were actually smart enough to figure it out, why wouldn't I let you six go~!" The silver finger cover Celestia Ludenberg wore was overshadowed by the two large black spirals that now poked out of sides of the mastermind's head.

"Wh-what the hell kind of shit are you pulling, whore?!" Fukawa screamed from her spot, immediately returning to biting away at the pad of her thumb.

"The kind of shit? Please, do not act that way. You have won, after all." A red armband, exactly the same as Kiyotaka Ishimaru's had found itself perched on Ikusaba's forearm.

"Tell me about Junko Enoshima." Kirigiri ordered from her position, looking dead-eyed at Ikusaba.

"Junko Enoshima-chan. Twas such a lovely girl, really. Tis a shame I never got to spend more time with my little sister before she died." The fighting tape wrapped around Ikusaba's arms, coupled with the speaking style, mirrored Sakura Oogami's perfectly.

"DON'T PRETEND TO BE SAKURA-CHAN. YOU'RE THE REASON SHE'S DEAD, AND YOU SHOULDN'T PLAY GAMES LIKE THAT YOU CRAZY BITCH!" Asahina shrieked at Ikusaba.

"Asahina-san, please do forgive me. I did not mean to upset you, this is just how I am." Asahina's eyes pooled more and more tears with every word spoken by the mastermind.

"Calm down, Asahina. You said little sister. Keep going."

"Well, Junko Enoshima-dono was my little sis, and a wonderful little sis, too!" She poked Hifumi Yamada's glasses up her nose. "She was so eager to help me with anything, even though she was only 13 minutes younger."

"A twin sister." Kirigiri wondered out loud.

"Exactly a twin sister! She was such a sweetie!" Ikusaba looked down at Sayaka Maizono's top and said, "I quite like this one. Fits me better than I thought~"

"Let us go!" Hagakure screamed at Ikusaba from his desk.

"Oh hush, silly. You really really reaaaally don't want to leave." A pink wig appeared on Ikusaba's head, along with a bunny clip and a big bow.

"Why not?" Kirigiri inquired. She glanced at Asahina, shaking uncontrollably, shaken up by the scene with "Oogasaba" a moment ago.

"Because… it's a nightmare out there." Fujisaki. "The whole world's covered in fuckin' despair!" Oowada. "Totally sweet-ass despair!" Kuwata. "But, since you have won the game, I will allow you a choice." Celes. "You can all vote me off, or, you can have one vote otherwise, kill …hmm…" Yamada. "Kill Naegi-kun, and stay here, where it's safe, forever! That one should be much more preferable, 'ne?" Maizono. "So that means one final vote. A vote for death on Naegi's part for you to stay in this school, or death on my part for you to despair in the real, nightmarish, world. Please, take your pick." Ishimaru.

The button returned before Kirigiri, this time, with only two choices. The face of Mukuro Ikusaba, and the face of Makoto Naegi. The former was pressed quickly and silently and the stylus was set down. She looked around. Hagakure would never kill Naegi, neither would Asahina. Fukawa would rely on whatever Togami ordered, and he wouldn't be stupid enough at this point to risk Kirigiri's wrath if he chose poorly. Naegi would never ask for his own death, it would be completely foolish. Kirigiri surmised that no one had voted for Naegi, meaning they would be leaving quite soon.

"Well… I guess it wasn't much of a surprise to me that you did this. I'm impressed at your ability to stay together. Did none of you… really believe when I said the outside world was a nightmare?" Mukuro pushed two buttons and several screens popped up, displaying images of fire, disease, war, murder, pillage, rape, poverty, and men with Monobear helmets that covered their entire faces causing it all.

"I just wanted a war." Mukuro said to the six. "War was what I grew up with. It's all I know. War is the lifeblood flowing through my veins, death, fighting, and glorious, incredible despair.

"Despair is the only emotion I'm capable of feeling. It is the only emotion worth feeling, I should put it. Despair is all I wanted the world to feel, and what better way to spread despair than by waging a horrifying war. All the uprisings, bloodshed, death, that's all pouring despair into people's minds. And it's lovely.

"And this feeling. Deep in the pit of my stomach. Despair. I've never felt this kind of despair before, and I murdered my own sister in cold blood. Is this… death's despair? The despair that courses through your veins because you know that everything you've ever done is ruined, gone, all for nothing? I love it. I… I wish I could coat the world in just ten, no, just _one_ percent of this glorious, beautiful, bone-chilling despair!

"Well, that's it, then. I shall see you all in hell." Mukuro's hand slammed down on the execution button, laughing maniacally. The memorabilia of the fallen she was wearing dropped to the ground.

Mukuro Ikusaba sat upon a desk, waving goodbye. Machines buzzed a whirred and popped as she moved slowly closer to her death. "I've set up a special execution for myself— Mukuro Ikusaba, Super High School Level Despair!" Mukuro went tumbling backwards as she put herself through each execution thus far, even the execution of Jin Kirigiri, which was entitled by herself A Space Journey.

Finally, after all that, she sat at a desk, a Monobear clutched tight to her chest, a crown perched on her head. Her body was broken, bloody, demolished, but not dead. Her outfit had been changed into an identical, clean one, and her feet swung lazily. Behind her, the mammoth stone slab that almost took Naegi's life pounded at a steady beat of once per nine seconds. If she was scared or worried of death, Mukuro's smile and peace sign didn't show it. A tiny laugh escaped her lips and she found herself underneath the slab. As she realized it was about to smash down, a single tear fell from her left eye. The rock pounded down, sending blood and Monobear metal careening everywhere.

"She dropped this." Kirigiri said, completely disregarding the suicide of Mukuro Ikusaba and picking up a small remote. "If my assumption is correct, this opens the door to the outside world."

"Then we'll be off." Togami added, turning towards the door.


End file.
